Lake City Columbia offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil could continue that trend. Tunsil, the No. 7 overall prospect in the Class of 2013 and the top-rated uncommitted recruit, has indicated that his top three schools are Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

The tendency of elite recruits from Florida to leave the state is a recent development. In fact, since the current version of Rivals.com formed in 2002, five-star prospects from Florida high schools actually have been more likely to stay in their home states for college than five-star recruits from California or Texas high schools.

Exactly two-thirds of the 51 five-star recruits from Florida have chosen in-state schools, compared to 65 percent from California high schools and 53.7 percent from Texas high schools.

The results change if we extend the study to include all Rivals100 prospects. Just over 70 percent of the Rivals100 prospects from California high schools have signed with home-state colleges, compared to 64.2 percent for Florida and 61.1 percent for Texas.

But those numbers are skewed a bit by history.

Back when Florida State and Miami weren't far removed from winning national titles, all the Sunshine State's elite recruits chose to stay home. Florida produced a combined total of 11 five-star prospects in 2002 and 2003, and every single one of them signed with Florida, Florida State or Miami.

Now those guys are much more likely to look elsewhere.

"It falls in line with Florida State and Miami not being dominant programs," Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell said. "They were back then. They aren't now. Until they go to BCS games, until they win a national championship, there are other opportunities out there.''

Perhaps the trend will change this year.

Of the three Florida 2013 recruits currently rated as five-star prospects, the only one who has committed anywhere is Tampa Wharton cornerback Vernon Hargreaves III, who selected Florida.

Although Tunsil has two out-of-state schools in his top three, five-star linebacker Matthew Thomas of Miami Booker T. Washington told Warchant.com last month that Florida State was his leader.

But at least for now, elite prospects in other Southeastern states seem more inclined to stay home than top recruits from Florida.

KEEPING THEM HOME

In the main bar of this story, we've listed the percentages of five-star prospects from each state who signed with home-state colleges since the current version of Rivals.com started in 2002. This chart expands the study to show the percentages of Rivals100 recruits from each state who signed with home-state colleges rather than going elsewhere. We included only those states that have produced at least seven Rivals100 recruits since 2002.

State

Stayed

Left

Stay Pct.

Alabama

31

9

77.5

Louisiana

32

10

76.2

California

99

41

70.7

Mississippi

16

7

69.6

Michigan

17

8

68.0

Arkansas

6

3

66.7

Nebraska

4

2

66.7

Virginia

19

10

65.5

Oklahoma

11

6

64.7

Florida

111

62

64.2

South Carolina

19

12

61.3

Texas

88

56

61.1

Ohio

29

20

59.2

Missouri

9

7

56.3

Oregon

5

4

55.6

Tennessee

7

6

53.8

Georgia

37

33

52.9

Arizona

6

7

46.2

Colorado

4

6

40.0

Indiana

3

5

37.5

Kentucky

3

5

37.5

Pennsylvania

12

28

30.0

Kansas

2

5

28.6

Maryland

5

14

26.3

North Carolina

10

33

23.3

Illinois

5

18

21.7

New Jersey

5

18

21.7

D.C.*

1

5

16.7

Utah

1

5

16.7

New York

0

8

0.0

* - We indicated that a D.C. high school prospect signed with a home-state school if he chose a college in Maryland or Virginia.

We've put together a list below showing the percentage of five-star high school recruits in each state who signed with home-state colleges.

We only considered states that had produced at least five five-star prospects since 2002. At least three-quarters of the five-star prospects in SEC strongholds Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina have opted for home-state schools. The only other states to reach that 75-percent mark were Michigan and Virginia.

Keep in mind that for the purposes of this project, we only included five-star recruits who signed with a Division I program directly out of high school.

Our Texas and California totals don't measure players who went to Texas or California junior colleges before beginning their Division I careers. Our Virginia statistics don't include players from Chatham (Va.) Hargrave Military Academy or Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy.